Big Changes

October has arrived and with it, some big changes have come to our house. The first change was cutting down trees. We’ve been planning to cut down our pine trees all year. We managed to do eight during the summer with Tabor, Josiah, and our neighbor Ziggy Dunn’s help. On Thursday Ziggy and another neighbor, Dave Smoker, came over in the afternoon with their chainsaw and a backhoe and in no time at all took down the six biggest trees – the blue spruce by the mailbox and a white pine, three Norway spruce trees, and a half dead maple tree in the woodland garden. Watching Ziggy and Dave work was exciting, a bit terrifying at times, and sad all at the same time. Ziggy cut and Dave pushed with the backhoe, and trees came down in just minutes.

The first tree down.

Trees down in the woodland garden.

On Saturday, Ziggy, his wife Wendy, and his brother-in-law John Turton, showed up bright and early and worked most of the day at trimming and cutting the big logs into pieces and hauling them away. While they were doing that, we piled up branches in several spots around the property and later in the afternoon, began burning them. There are still ten more trees that need to be cut, but they are smaller (relatively) and won’t be as big a job. I was glad that we made so much progress on that big project. Even so, I also felt sad to see such big trees fall. Miriam counted the rings on the largest Norway spruce. It was 74 years old. Many of these trees were live Christmas trees that my aunts planted over the years. So a chapter in the garden’s history is ending and a new one will begin. When all the pines are gone, I will replant the woodland garden with deciduous trees.

Cutting up and hauling away logs.

One of the branch piles burning.

The yard looks so different, so open and exposed, without those trees towering over us. But now we don’t have to worry about the house being smashed by a tree. There was some collateral damage. The backhoe and truck and trailer damaged the lawn, leaving deep rutted tread marks. I don’t know how I will get those to heal. One of the spruce trees in the woodland garden also fell on my magnolia bush and smashed it. I don’t know if it will recover. It was hard for me to watch all the destruction, even though I planned it all. But the trees needed to come down and now they are down. Ziggy, Dave, and John worked on the “good neighbor” policy of helping people out just because they are our neighbors and they can. We really appreciate what they’ve done for us. Last year when we had a professional forester come and give us an estimate on removing all the trees, he quoted us $10,000. Without our good neighbors, I don’t know when or how we would have accomplished it.

The back side of the house looking naked.

The second big change was part of Miriam’s project of redoing her bedroom. Her room is what was the spare bedroom upstairs in the addition part of the house (remember the addition was added sometime around 1900). When I was a child, that was Aunt Sarah’s room where she kept her loom and spinning wheel. My aunts used to keep a folding cot in there for when an extra bed was needed and I slept there several times while visiting them over the years. That room is the coldest in the house. It is furthest from any heat source and is not well insulated. It had a door that opened onto a little iron balcony that sat on the woodshed roof. The balcony was in bad shape, as is the woodshed roof it rested on. So as part of Miriam’s renovation, she had the door removed and replaced with a window – that took place two weeks ago. Then on Friday the man we hired to do the exterior work came and took down the balcony. So the house looks very different now too without its old balcony.

The house with the balcony (July 2018).

The house without the balcony (this morning).

The third big change came on Friday night when the temperature finally fell low enough to freeze the garden. Anticipating the freeze, on Friday afternoon I cut bouquets of dahlias, anemones, cosmos, zinnias, and one last gladiolus and brought them into the house. The only plant we covered in the garden was the morning glory vine, hoping it would survive the freeze. It was damaged, but not killed. I also brought many of my potted plants onto the back porch where they will remain until I either bring them indoors for the winter, or let them die when the cold gets severe enough to freeze the back porch too.

The evening before the frost came.

The last bouquets before the frost.

The fourth big change was indoors. A few weeks ago when we had a cold spell, we convinced Stacey to light the pilot on the furnace. She usually wants to hold off lighting it until after Halloween, but it was chilly and she capitulated and lit it. But then she kept the thermostat turned down to 50°, so it didn’t really matter much anyway. On Friday when Miriam and I got home from school (before Hannah and Stacey got home), it was chilly inside the house and I decided to turn the thermostat up to 65° – the maximum temporary setting that Stacey allows. After the house warmed up a little (and before Stacey got home), I turned the thermostat back down to 60°, the regular setting Stacey enforces. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, I heard the quiet whoosh of the furnace coming on. It was a comforting and yet a sad sound.

Some scenes from a trip to the Amish store on Saturday.

On the road to the Amish store on Saturday.

This is General Conference weekend, an uplifting and exciting event that we look forward to. We watched all three sessions yesterday while working on the trees before, between, and after the sessions. Today we will watch the Sunday sessions at noon and 4:00. There were big changes announced at Conference yesterday – changes to the Aaronic Priesthood and Young Women’s organizations, and new temples announced. I know that Pres. Nelson is the Lord’s prophet and these changes are happening under the direction of the Lord through revelation. It is exciting to be part of the growing Kingdom of God in the Last Days. I feel so blessed to be member of Christ’s church.

Looking at the week ahead, it appears there won't be any more frosts and freezes again for a while. We’re supposed to have cool, autumn weather -- perfect for what I need to do outdoors. Now that we’ve had a hard frost, it’s time to clean out the garden. And there are more pine branch piles to burn. And more leaves to remove from the lawn. And I need to repair some windows in the barn. And I hope we’ll have time to take some walks and maybe a drive or two to look at fall leaves. I love this busy and beautiful time of the year. It changes so fast, you must enjoy it while it lasts.